Anterior corneal profile with variable asphericity.

We present a corneal profile in which the eccentricity, e(Q = -e(2)), has a nonlinear continuous variation from the center outwards. This nonlinear variation is intended to fit and reproduce our current experimental data in which the anterior corneal surface of the human eye exhibits different values of e at different diameters. According to our clinical data, the variation is similar to an exponential decay. We propose a linear combination of two exponential functions to describe the variation of e. We then calculate the corneal sagittal height by substituting e in the first-order aspherical surface equation to obtain the corneal profile. This corneal profile will be used as a reference to analyze the resultant profiles of the customized corneal ablation in refractive surgery. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America